Multiple conductor flat conductor cables are extensively used in many areas of electronic machine manufacture. In particular, flat conductor cables are used as backplane wiring to interconnect various circuit boards and other modules within computer systems. These flat conductor cables oftentimes carry a plurality of signal carrying conductors and ground conductors associated with each signal carrying conductor. It is necessary to separate the signal carrying conductors from the ground conductors when the conductors are attached to a connector block. It is important while separating the signal conductors from the ground conductors that no damage be done to any of the conductors which would tend to degrade their conducting properties. While it is thus necessary to be precise and careful while separating the ground conductors from the signal carrying conductors it is also necessary for any method or apparatus to be efficient and productive. In accomplishing this it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus for simultaneously separating a selected plurality of ground conductors from their associated signal carrying conductors.
The flat multiple conductor cable which is commonly used in electronic equipment employs a high quality dielectric insulation to separate the conductors. A suitable insulative material is a fluorocarbon resin film tetrafluoroethylene marketed by DuPont under the trademark TFE. A suitable process for the preparation of Teflon TFE is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,478,229 and 2,559,752. Polyimide films as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,179,674 and marketed by DuPont under the trademark Kapton and Polykapton have also been employed as insulators in flat cables. It is necessary to strip this insulation off the conductors before the conductors are mounted in the connected block over the ground plane. The instant invention discloses a method for stripping the insulation from the signal carrying conductors and the ground conductors and separating the signal carrying conductors from the ground conductors before they are connected to a connector block.